


pinkie promises

by Areiton



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Avengers, Established Relationship, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, pinkie promises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 03:37:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: “Wake me when we land?” Clint asks, his breath tickling across Bucky’s throat.Bucky nods, “Promise.”





	pinkie promises

**Author's Note:**

> This is sad. Like. Fair warning. (My kids were horrified when I told them what I was writing.) Prompted by [this](https://areiton.tumblr.com/post/185451873272/whumpster-dumpster-character-a-falling-asleep). 

 

All of them were tired. It’d been almost six hours of surveillance and then four clearing the Hydra base, all of it in a torrent of rain so thick Bucky’d been pulled in from his sniper post to get up close and personal, thick enough that Sam had been grounded and Stark had kept up a steady stream of bitching. 

But they’d done it--cleared the base, and they’d done it without any casualties. 

Clint drops into the seat next to him, and Bucky leans into the blonde. This thing between them is new enough that Nat’s warning glare is keeping the teasing to a minimum, and he doesn’t feel anything but a warm flush of pleasure when Clint leans into him. 

“Tired?” Bucky murmurs and Clint kind of snuffles, sleepily, pressing into the curve of his throat, and Bucky huffs a laugh, wraps an arm around him to hold him close and leans his own head back. 

“Two hours,” Stark says, soft enough that it just barely filters back to him. He’s gray with fatigue and Bucky wonders--Steve is there, steering the genius to a corner seat, pulling him down to rest as JARVIS takes control. 

“Wake me when we land?” Clint asks, his breath tickling across Bucky’s throat. 

Bucky nods, “Promise.” 

Clint’s pinkie hooks in his and Bucky closes his eyes to the press of cool lips against his throat and the steady sound of his team breathing around him. 

~*~ 

The quiet lurch of the quinnjet settling wakes him. The team is moving around him and Clint, quiet and tired. “Pizza in the kitchen,” Stark says, as he stumbles past, Steve steering. 

“Wake up, babe,” Bucky murmurs. 

Clint doesn’t move. He sighs, and shakes him a little, and--Clint slumps against the seat, his body limp and pale, and Bucky realizes abruptly, that the pinkie caught in his is stiff and cold. 

His black tac suit is gleaming, wet and when Buck touches it with trembling fingers--it comes away bloody. 

He can hear someone screaming, can hear running and Natasha’s panic, but he can’t hear Clint breathing, can’t feel anything but the heavy weight of him and the cold clasp of his pinkie, wrapped around his like a shattered promise. 

~*~ 

He can hear them talking around him. 

He can feel Steve, sitting close enough to touch, the heavy heat of him and it makes him want to scream, want to bolt away. 

He  _ did, _ the one time Steve touched him. 

Natasha is silent, pale, a tightly coiled presence he can tolerate. 

She is the only one he can tolerate. 

“You should change,” Stark tells him, once. He’s still in his tac suit, blood dried and flaky. Bucky ignored him. 

He’s been ignoring him for the past three days. 

“I should have known,” Bucky says, once. Tasha looked at him, bloodshot eyes and grief etched in her lovely face. “I should have--I didn’t even  _ check. _ ” 

“He didn’t tell us,” she reminds him. “He didn’t tell anyone.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything.  Just sits in that damn chair, and ignores his team and waits. 

Until the pinkie wrapped around his tightens, just a little, and Clint says, sleepily, “What happened?” 

Bucky makes a noise, low and hurt, and he squeezes Clint’s pinkie, and chokes out, “You asshole,” just before he bursts into relieved tears. 


End file.
